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Neighbors saying our face is the same, but I know
Toward my daughter, he lurches like a brother
On the playground. He won’t turn apart from her,
Confounded. I never fought for so much—
My daughter; my son swaggers about her.
They are so small. And I, still, am a young man.
They play. He is not yet incarcerated.
Copyright © 2018 by Jericho Brown. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 14, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
I once saw Jazell Barbie Royale
Do Whitney Houston so well
I got upset with myself for sneaking
Past the cashier
After having been patted down. Security frisks you
For nothing. They don’t believe in trouble. They don’t
Imagine a gun or a blade, though
Sometimes they make you walk all the way back
My uncles are the tallest men I know.
Every doorway a chance to bow
Their heads, they love the Lord.
Skin so dark their last name is Lenoir.
Imagine growing up Black
In Louisiana with a name that French
But only able to pass for night.
The water is one thing, and one thing for miles.
The water is one thing, making this bridge
Built over the water another. Walk it
Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone
Rising just to find a way toward rest again.
We work, start on one side of the day
Like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight